A Blade of Glass

Chapter 8

Before they'd even reached the car, Julian's phone was ringing again. One glance at it had him feeling irritation, or at least as much as he ever felt.

Suppressing the desire to just let it ring, he hit the button and answered with his usual clipped "Drake."

The familiar voice of Peter Krause echoed out as he shouted, "What the hell is this crap!?"

"Agent Krause," Julian countered, keeping his voice level, "What are you talking about?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about. You've got a clear case for the G.E.P.C.B.-A.P.D. and I want to know why you haven't handed it over yet?"

The G.E.P. Crime Bureau, Anti-Powered Division was a subdivision of the government's Bureau on G.E.P. Affairs and handled hate crimes against the G.E.P. community. It was also a group that Julian didn't particularly like.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about, the Sabbatyne case! Why didn't you call about it? It's clearly our jurisdiction, so why haven't you handed it over? Some misguided sense of loyalty?"

"Nothing of the sort, it's just got nothing to do with you."

"Nothing to.... A member of the G.E.P. community has been attacked and it's got nothing to do with us? It's got everything to do with us, so I'm going to be over and take over, in the meantime, I want you to prep everything for the transfer and then I'm going to have you written up!"

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean, no, I'm not handing it over, and no, it has nothing to do with you. Yes, a member of the G.E.P. community has been attacked, but so far, no evidence that this was an anti-G.E.P. crime has been uncovered, it looks to have been a personal issue so far and as such, falls under normal police jurisdiction."

He could hear sputtering on the other end, so he added "If I find anything that suggests that it's anything to do with any anti-G.E.P. activities, I will be sure to call you, until then, I have other things to do." And hung up.

Julian looked around, spotting the girls by the car, watching him. Nickie gave him a small shrug, telling him that she got it and sympathized, but what could you do?

She'd only been part of the team for a few months when she'd first had to deal with the G.E.P.C.B.-A.P.D. and Agent Krause in particular, and it hadn't been a pleasant experience.

They'd been handling the murder of a G.E.P. who had been killed on their way home from a club and then posed on a pile of trash. Since the victim had been a G.E.P., the Bureau had muscled their way in, taking over the case, after which they had ignored evidence that Julian and his team had found and instead focused almost exclusively on anti-G.E.P. hate groups in the area.

When another, non-G.E.P. body had been discovered in a similar state, Julian had gotten the case and tracked the killer down. It turned out that the serial killer had killed the G.E.P. without knowing that they had any powers and that if the Bureau had followed the clues that the squad had found, the next victim might not have died, which had created a bit of a scandal for them, leading to them having to wait until it had been determined that it was an actual hate crime, before they could take over, something they were still bitter about.

Putting that aside, they headed for their destination while Julian made a few phone calls, finding out what he could from Q32 about what Katrina had ordered, which turned out to mostly be clothes and a few other personal items, including her hygiene supplies.